December 18th, 2008 in We all feel the anxiety out there, right?
- “My bookings are down.”
- “I need to go to cheaper albums.”
- “I’ll just have to sell the high-res files on DVD.”
But how long do you want your personal recession to last? If you’re not careful the actions you take now will affect your business for a long, long time.
If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve spent your photographic career building a high-end wedding and portrait studio. Congratulations, it’s not easy. But please don’t throw it away.
Three basic facts:
- Most of your competitors are “backyarders” … “weekend warriors”.
- You will never, ever, ever compete with them on price. They have a job to pay their bills.
- If you cut your prices you’ll spend years getting back to where you are now.
What would I do instead?
- I would not sabotage my long-term business in order to survive the short-term crisis.
- I might even take a lesson from the back-yarders and get a job. Or another income stream.
I’m serious! Heather and I have a few miles on the clock 
While we were building Queensberry, Heather made and sold leather souvenirs etc. I worked in marine architecture and later did book-keeping for other small businesses.
In 1987 New Zealand was near broke and the government nearly put us out of business by allowing in cheap Asian imports that retailed for less than our wholesale price. We didn’t say, “Hey honey, we need to start making cheap crappy stuff ‘cos that’s all we can sell.” We just decided to keep our other income streams running for longer.
We stayed true to our dream. And actually our sales increased.
We know that times will be tough for many of our clients, but we hope that you stay true to your dream.
More tomorrow…
Cheers, Ian
PS The reason we thrived was that we had a high-end, differentiated album range that our competitors couldn’t match.
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Hi Ian
wise words from a sage of our time… i too have been around a bit as you are well aware, and have had the pleasure of supplying Queensberry albums to what I consider a discerning market for the last 22 years.
what I found in the late 80′s crash.. after a while when people got used to the way things were, they re-focussed on what was important to them.. it wasnt “stuff” in the form of tangible bits and pieces.. it was emotional value items like wedding albums and family images on display.
Current clients who have booked with me would not want me to supply an inferior product.. they bought me and the style that goes with what I offer.
I expect belts to tighten, but by and large the majority of my clients are still employed and still earning money and still buying all the specials and sales items that are freely out there… I dont intend putting myself on sale, I may “add” value with a print if an order is sufficiently sizeable, but de-valuing my services is not a path easily trodden, do your fixed overheads give you consideration when it gets tighter?.. dont think so.
Ian and Heather, congratulations on achieving all you have done and more for the industry on an International basis.. sheer icons!
These are helpful and timely comments. It is easy to screw up the long term with knee-jerk reactions and thanks for sharing your own hard won experience.
Thanks for the encouragement guys – we opened a new high street studio on 1st Sept and thought we had made a monumental mistake when the whole banking ‘house of cards’ tumbled down – but we have had a fantastic response to our work (and to our Queensberry albums). The new cash is a bit slow at the moment but we have had fantastic wedding re-orders, with most weddings returning about £300 extra in reprints – this has helped us through so far…
Making a ‘big deal’ of the contact sheets and putting time-limited offers for the reprints is something everyone should consider… We will never give or sell high res images – ever!
Ian
Aura Studio
Northern Ireland
Excellent initiative Ian. Nice to hear someone doing something positive to help the industry through the next few months. I agree – it’s going to be tough but we all need to increase activity and think of new ways of increasing sales. High end differentiation is a good strategy – Ferrari still can’t make enough cars….
Cheers
Gary Hewlett
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